Stockton beach 24/5/24

[slothparade]

Headed onto the beach at about 4pm, after pulling out multiple bigged cars we found a rather narrow, fast running gutter leading straight out with a channel running through and a second wider gutter next door. Fresh squid and pillis was the bait of choice, mates were using fresh slimy and mullet gut. 

As for gear, I was using a samaki zing gen 3 12ft 10-20kg with a Penn slammer 4 (absolutely amazing reel), with a padanoster rig, running 50 lbs fluro, with a size 5 break away sinker and 6/0 hooks. The second rod was a aerowave, 8-12kg with a Penn spinfisher live liner running 40 lbs braid. The rig was another padanoster with a size 4 break away sinker with ganged hooks, again targeting jewfish but also anything else hungry. The reason for that particular rod is it has a large cast rating of 3-6oz and the large reel meant I could just let the fish take as much line as needed. For my final rod, I brought my sandstorm 10ft 10-15kg with a saragosa with 30 lbs braid, and throwing pearl paddle tails. 

Partner brought her 13ft Penn prevails, with spinfisher live liners, with sliding rigs with 2 smelled 6/0 hooks, and size 5 star sinkers. 

Rigged on the first squid, and throw it out just on the edge of the gutter and threw out a pilli in the middle of the gutter. About 5 mins later saw the squid go off, and brought it in, nothing bait was missing. Mates fishing the gutter next door, were getting smashed but not hooking up. I send out another squid right in the middle of the gutter and chanel. Then start throwing the soft plastics in the other gutter next to us, working it on the edges of the chanel and sand bank. After a couple casts, something hits like a fright train, tightened the drag down, but there was just no stoping it, watched the line go past the half spool, then 1/3 spool before the leader gave way. While I was dealing with that my partner's rod gets smashed by something large, best guess is a shark, which almost spooled her reel before the leader broke free. As I was retying, my rod gets smashed, almost pulling over the rod holder, ran over to grab it, could definitely feel a strong determined run, but then nothing, also no bait left again. Tried multiple times again with the squid and pillis, but Everytime the baits were stolen but not hooking up. After loosing over 10 squid, I decided to start using rubber bands to make sure the squid couldn't be torn off the hooks. Sent out another bait, and sat around waiting, waited for about 30 mins and partner's rod went off. Again strong, determined run, after a good 20 min fight, the fight stopped, but there was still a large dead weight on the end. Brought it in, and shed been taxed, all that was left was the head of a large jewfish. We decided to persist and continue, throughout the night we lost over 20 squid, which multiple runs but struggling to actually hook up or stay hooked, while our mates got lucky with a school of salmon and had non stop action. Unfortunately me being the potato I am, I waded out into the surf to cast forgetting my phone was in my pocket 😅. 

All in all, a great night though. 

Any tips for hooking up or staying hooked would be appreciated. Maybe the hooked were to large and needed to go to 4/0? 

[Green Hornet]

Sounds like you had an action packed night and shame about the large jew being eaten. I’ve never heard of that happening down my way before.

From your topic the other day you mentioned you like to leave your bait rods set in a tube. Have you tried circle hooks? I don’t use them myself, preferring to always hold my rod, but from what I’ve read a lot of guys prefer circles for set rods.

[slothparade]

10 minutes ago, Green Hornet said:

Sounds like you had an action packed night and shame about the large jew being eaten. I’ve never heard of that happening down my way before.

From your topic the other day you mentioned you like to leave your bait rods set in a tube. Have you tried circle hooks? I don’t use them myself, preferring to always hold my rod, but from what I’ve read a lot of guys prefer circles for set rods.

Along Stockton, there's a large sand bar that runs along most of the beach right out the back, the sharks all sit a couple metres off the back of that sand bar and cruise up and down. Anything in of that, the sharks are either small or non existent, but as soon as you cross that large sandbar, it's large shark territory. 

Yep, they were 6/0 circle hooks, snell rig, and I pushed the top of the squid over the eye of the hook and then did 2 extra passes through the squid with the top hook and 2 on the bottom, so they definitely weren't just coming off. The pillis though, not sure, they just kept disappearing, though they were on ganged hooks. 

Should I drop to 5/0 circle hooks? 

Edited May 25 by slothparade

[Green Hornet]

Pillies could have possibly been picked to bits by crabs or bream, try a half pilly on a 1 or 1/0 to check that it’s not bream.

Wouldn’t know about the circle hooks, I’ve never used them.

[humesy]

On 5/25/2024 at 11:25 AM, slothparade said:

Along Stockton, there's a large sand bar that runs along most of the beach right out the back, the sharks all sit a couple metres off the back of that sand bar and cruise up and down. Anything in of that, the sharks are either small or non existent, but as soon as you cross that large sandbar, it's large shark territory. 

Yep, they were 6/0 circle hooks, snell rig, and I pushed the top of the squid over the eye of the hook and then did 2 extra passes through the squid with the top hook and 2 on the bottom, so they definitely weren't just coming off. The pillis though, not sure, they just kept disappearing, though they were on ganged hooks. 

Should I drop to 5/0 circle hooks? 

Action packed session. I wouldn't drop your hook size. I caught a 1m jew on a 6/0 circle hook last night and the hook was pretty small in the corner of its mouth. Might also depend on the size of your bait too though.

[slothparade]

21 hours ago, humesy said:

Action packed session. I wouldn't drop your hook size. I caught a 1m jew on a 6/0 circle hook last night and the hook was pretty small in the corner of its mouth. Might also depend on the size of your bait too though.

Yeah thought 6/0 was about right. The squid were about 40g, approx 12cm long (weighed and measured them as I was working out cast capacity). But really unsure of where my baits kept disappearing to? 

[slothparade]

On 5/25/2024 at 11:50 AM, Green Hornet said:

Pillies could have possibly been picked to bits by crabs or bream, try a half pilly on a 1 or 1/0 to check that it’s not bream.

Wouldn’t know about the circle hooks, I’ve never used them.

The rigs I was using, the bait was meant to be about 1m off the bottom, so id say crabs can be rules out. Bream on the other hand, is interesting, I would have thought with the ganged hooks, there would be a reasonable chance to still hook one. I've caught bream on hooks bigger than the ganged ones I was using? The pillis were huge, be more like a 1/4 to go on a 1/0, but thanks for the tip, I'll have a try next time. 

[Green Hornet]

22 minutes ago, slothparade said:

The rigs I was using, the bait was meant to be about 1m off the bottom, so id say crabs can be rules out. Bream on the other hand, is interesting, I would have thought with the ganged hooks, there would be a reasonable chance to still hook one. I've caught bream on hooks bigger than the ganged ones I was using? The pillis were huge, be more like a 1/4 to go on a 1/0, but thanks for the tip, I'll have a try next time. 

Years ago I used to cast unweighted pillies on gang hooks and slowly retrieve, a very effective way method for tailor. You’d know if the bream were around when you bait would constantly have the belly bitten around it. They’re quite good at picking at baits until they drop off the gangs. Occasionally a big hungry one would fall foul of the 4/0 or 5/0 gangs.